Quotes from Stephen R. Covey

For those filled with regret, perhaps the most needful exercise of proactivity is to realize that past mistakes are also out there in the Circle of Concern. We can't recall them, we can't undo them, we can't control the consequences that came as a result.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Personal responsibility, or proactivity, is fundamental to the first creation. Returning to the computer metaphor, Habit 1 says, "You are the programmer." Habit 2, then, says, "Write the program.

The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do," he observed. "They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.

God was at the center of your life, everything else would find its proper place.

Through real-life stories, Kristin Kaufman illustrates the core idea of being present in the moment and opening oneself up to new ideas in order to become an authentic leader in life.

as Marilyn Ferguson observed, "No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal.

It is the habit that enables people to stay fit for today's world in four critical areas—physical, social-emotional, mental, and spiritual. You will recognize those four areas as rooted in the four basic needs that allow young people—all people—to feel greater peace of mind.

Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.

captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change

The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.

It's easy to say "no!" when there's a deeper "yes!" burning inside.

The term paradigm shift was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his highly influential landmark book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, "No one can hurt you without your consent." In the words of Gandhi, "They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them." It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place. I

People often find themselves achieving victories that are empty, successes that have come at the expense of things they suddenly realize were far more valuable to them.

Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education. Thoreau taught, "How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?

humans have between what happens to us and our response to it.

The work will come again, but childhood won't.

if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself

In the words of Thoreau, "For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root." We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.

My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her.

The children of blame are cynicism and hopelessness.

I am the creative force of my life.

It takes an enormous amount of internal security to begin with the spirit of adventure, the spirit of discovery, the spirit of creativity. Without doubt, you have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a trailblazer, a pathfinder. You open new possibilities, new territories, new continents, so that others can follow.